Devil-cult killer rejected for parole

A lifer inmate who has been in prison for more than four decades for his role in one of Orange County's most notorious killing sprees Wednesday was rejected again in a bid for parole.

A two-person panel of the state parole board found that Arthur Craig “Moose” Hulse, now 59, would pose an unreasonable risk of danger to society if released, in part because he never grasped why his 1970 crimes took place and has not made sufficient progress toward rehabilitation.

It was the 13th time Hulse has been turned down.

He was part of a small band of transient, devil-worshipping drug users who triggered a wave of fear during the summer of 1970 with two slayings:

Santa Ana gas station attendant Jerry Wayne Carlin, 20, who was unaware that he was about to become a father, was hacked to death in the station's restroom with a Boy Scout hatchet June 2.

El Toro school teacher Florence Nancy Brown, 29, was stabbed more than 20 times the next day in an Irvine field after she was carjacked at a freeway off-ramp.

Hulse was convicted in 1971 of first-degree murder and accessory to murder and has been in prison since. Steven Hurd, Hulse's co-defendant and the unofficial leader of the cult, died in prison of natural causes in 2005.

Orange County Deputy District Attorney Paul Odwald attended Hulse's parole hearing Wednesday at the California Medical Facility in Vacaville and opposed release, contending that the crimes were “especially heinous, atrocious and cruel.”

Odwald said he told the parole board that the brutality of the two slayings was reminiscent of the Manson family murders a year earlier in Los Angeles County.

Hulse, Hurd and their followers were arrested on a tip about three weeks after the killings. Three co-defendants were convicted of lesser crimes and were released within a few years.

But Hulse, who was 16 years old in 1970, was given a life term. He is one of Orange County's longest continuously incarcerated inmates.

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